1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of aviation safety equipment, and specifically concerns apparatus that allows the cockpit crew of an inflight aircraft to visually monitor using at least one externally mounted digital video camera the positioning and deployment of various flight control surfaces. It further includes connection to the flight data recorder to provide a visual record of data in the event of a crash for subsequent analysis of functioning or malfunctioning of the various flight control surfaces. This facilitates postcrash National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) or similar investigative agency determination of crash causes and safety improvements.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has always been an object of aviators to improve the monitoring and control of inflight aircraft, as well as to utilize the experience of prior flights to improve the safety of aircraft and the techniques of safe aircraft operation. In the present day of high capacity aircraft, when an airliner crashes the loss of life is often enormous.
Much investigative attention in such tragedies is then frequently focused on the so-called "black boxes" carried by all modern airliners, which are more properly called the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. The flight data recorder comes in various models depending on the age of the aircraft in which it was installed. That is because the Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA) has mandated an increasing number of variables to be monitored in order to provide an ever increasing amount of data for postcrash investigation, and because constantly improving technology has made the collection of so much data readily achievable. The cockpit voice recorder records on a loop the last time period of sounds in the cockpit including the speech of the pilots and sounds made by cockpit instruments and ambient conditions.
In the last several years, single airliner crashes (as opposed to two or more aircraft in a collision) over deep water without readily apparent causes have led to ever increasing emphasis on the importance of the control, real time monitoring, and recording of data concerning the operating parameters of the aircraft immediately prior to crashing. In part that is because such catastrophic aircraft failures usually leave no one alive to assist in the investigation of the cause or causes.
In addition, although cockpit instruments provide some real time information on the positioning of external various flight control surfaces, and flight data recorders provide some information on such positioning after a crash, pilots cannot actually see many of the flight control surfaces either from the cockpit or from other windows in the plane. This is particularly true of all the vital control surfaces on the tail of the aircraft including elevators, rudder and trim tabs.
At the same time great strides have been made in the field of cameras, particularly digital video cameras and lenses. Miniaturization of such cameras and sophisticated control techniques makes it feasible to mount, control and operate them with a minimum of space and in very hostile environments. This, in turn, allows use of such cameras in the conditions found outside of a modern airliner in flight and at cruise altitude, e.g., with airspeeds to nearly 600 miles per hour and outside air temperatures down to about 60 or 70 degrees below zero fahrenheit.